Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1887-04-01

A Dcath-Bed Confession solves n
Mystery and Causes an Arrest.

A Shenandoah penn. special says !:
A murder mystery, the solution OF
which has bafiled all the detective skill
in this section OF Pennsylvania for the
past seventeen years, was explained
Yesterday by one Of the perpetrators OF
the crime making death-bed confes-
sion.
jefferson Yohe, the son of a Colum-
bia-county farmer, left this place on O
Friday morning in May, 1870, for his
home at Mifilin, about twenty miles
distant, after disposiDg OF load OF hay,
which he had brought in from the farm
the day before. There were turbulent
times in Schdylkill county then. The
Workinpmens Benevolent Association
wss engaged in its first great struggle
with the coal companies. The miners
had been on strike for three months,
the Mollie Maguires were defiant and
desperate, and murder, incendiarism,
and outrage were running riot through
out the whole lower anthracite-coal re-
glOn.
WOUNDED AND DYING.
About an hour after young Yohe left
town he was picked up on the top Of a
mountain, about mile and half away,
with bullet-wound in his neck, from
the result of which he died four days
later. Though MORALLY wounded, the
young man was conscious when found,
accurately described the man who shot
L., al lo1I In,y tI,a oriyOo WAC 1npa
On the top of the mountain, he said,
n stranger asked permission to ride with
him, and. before he had ridden more
than 900 yards, shot him while his back
WAS turned. Immediately after the fatal
shot was fired another man emerged
from the woods by the roadside and
rifled Lis pockets. Yohe did not know
either of the men.
QUEER-ACTGG STRANGERS.
During the afternoon two strangers
arrived in town and acted in such a
manner as to excite suspicion. Mean
time the friends of the wounded man
condemned The miners union and the
Mollies, and charged them with the
crime. Inquiry concerning the two
strangers revealed the fact that they
came from near the home of Yohe. One
of them said he knew the young man.
Their names we're Michael Hertzol and
Charles Fredericks. Hertzol visited
Yohe on his death-bed and talked to
him. Yohc did not recognize him, al
though he said after nc left the room
that his voice was like that of the man
who shot him. SO strong was the be-
lief that the murder had been COM
mitted by the miners that these two
were permitted to depart without being
arrested.
The two men were arrested two weeks
later end given a hearing before JUS
tice of the peace, but on the evidence
of pseudo detective, tending to prove
an 0iibi, secured their discharge, not
withstanding they had both made dam
ACCOMPLISHMENTS contradicted states
ments concerning their movements on
the day Of the murder.
Subsequently both brought up in the
penitenhary on charge of forgery.
CONFESSED AT LAST.
On Sunday last, when Fredericks was
dying at his home, near Mifflin, he
made full confession of the crime, re-
lating how Hertzol, having heard that
young Yohe WAS to bring $500 home on
his trip from Shenandoah, planned the
murder and invited him to help perpe-
trate it. Hertzol, he said, got on the
wagon, and, according to arrangement,
when the team reached the point al
which Fredericks was concealed in the
woods he fired the fatal shot. While
Hertzol ave his attention to the team
Fredericks rihed the wounded mans
pockets, but found only about $40, the
proceeds of the load OF hay.
Hertzol was arrested to-day and il
lodged in the Columbia-county jail.
He will be brought to this county fol
kw..l